


The Scriptures of Abundance

by Mama_Nihil



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempt at Humor, Blasphemy, But so far it's ANGST, Cute Gore, Heavy Angst, How many angst tags are there, I did manage a good old circle composition, I have no idea if this holds up to any standards of continuity, M/M, Now can I please have my life back, Papa longs for his Special One, Poetic, This will end in tears... of joy, aesthetic blood, and some fluff to wrap it up, blasphe-everybody in the room, blasphe-you, but hey, fair warning, i live for angst, me trying to be epic, mostly purple prose, some gore, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-24 23:31:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mama_Nihil/pseuds/Mama_Nihil
Summary: He was older than the others and yet so young. He was a child wrapped in man-skin and tied up with a leather bow. He was ecstasy waiting to happen, he was grief in human form. He was trouble and grace, a double-edged sword with a gilded hilt waiting to plunge into a sheath grown weary of masculine charms. He was all and nothing, a wormhole of want, a death’s head of desire. He needed Papa like these worthless maggots had never needed him, and not only his power, not only the worldly gifts he could bestow. He truly wanted to become one with him.Having given his all, Papa has lost his all. But maybe at the end of time, he can have it back.





	1. Memoria – The Treasury of Things Invented

_Time is like those flames._ That’s the thought that keeps fluttering at the edge of Papa’s consciousness where he sits pretending to warm his bones by the fire. _It dances and shines and consumes, but in the end what is it but a passing illusion? A spark of brightness soon to be snuffed out by nothingness._  
  
Time. He shakes his head. Is he really thinking about time, or about Him?  
  
He shifts in the chair and leans his head against the velvet cushion. The fire leaps and roars, extending beyond its reach, snapping and crackling with sparks that shoot towards heaven, only to fall and die at his feet. So much like the young men who used to court him in hopes of hellish favour.  
  
He frowns. How odd it is to inhabit a frame that remembers how to desire, but whose flame is sputtering weakly, barely mustering interest in a fantasy before sleep takes him. To know, to remember himself as the most lascivious fuck who ever drew breath, and yet what remains of all that wickedness? A bitter sarcasm filed down to bite size. Mouth-watering oaths a mere whimper.  
  
His biggest passion now his biggest loss.  
  
Maybe he shouldn’t dwell on it, but then again, why not? It’s the prerogative of the decrepit: to reminisce and ramble, to remember and regret. To dream of the young men he can no longer satisfy. To conjure the phantasms of yesteryear and have them dance anew for his pleasure.  
  
His chest contracts with a twinge of pleasure-pain. He tries to pretend that he misses them, all the young men who came to the church, longing to don the garb and the paint, desperate to please him. He forces a smile at the memory, all to confuse himself and muddy the truth. And as distractions go, those men aren’t bad. Eager young things, prepared to burn. They thought they were making a sacrifice, but discovered a bitter chalice they could never again forgo. They never reached their goals, because the price they paid was goal enough. They never made it past his halls, never bothered to take his gifts into the world.  
  
Except one. One gentle, stone cold soul who came to him for more than the usual. Who meant to sacrifice everything for Papa’s benediction and his curse, his crown and his seed. An eagle-eyed little monster, a whisper-thin veneer of self-control and a set of sharp, sharp teeth. A special ghoul.  
  
_My Special Ghoul._  
  
Papa closes his eyes on the dancing flames and conjures old fires instead. Sparks flying from hands that learned the crossroads lesson. Well, not so much hands as… voice. Papa shudders at the thought. Yes, the thought, because he hasn’t listened to the voice for a long time. He doesn’t like who he becomes at the sound.  
  
Of course it’s almost impossible to avoid it these days. The gift he gave was lavish. The promise is delivered, and his Special One is out there reaping the rewards, paying for the pleasure of Papa’s company with endless fame and fortune. And he thought it was the other way round.  
  
A bitter truth squeezes Papa’s throat: he wants his sweet bird to return, to choose him instead of the glittering path he’s on. The steep and thorny path, wouldn’t you know. He sits here, having given everything, and his beneficiary is out there drowning in applause, deaf to all other sounds. He knew what would happen when he set the wheels in motion, of course he did. But he never thought the eagle-eyed one would have such stamina, such persistence. And so he didn’t hold back, didn’t think to keep some secrets.  
  
Didn’t think to protect himself.  
  
Behind his closed eyes, that lithe young form takes shape, slithers snake-like into his consciousness. They all swoon at those thighs, that swagger, but have they laid their hands on hot flesh and felt it burn for them? No. Special hasn’t burned for anyone but Papa.  
  
The wording jars him out of bliss. Damnation. Put that way, it sounds like a sordid erotica, when it’s anything but. What they had – what he still has, on his own, in the furthest reaches of the night – can’t be measured in human words. They’re not related, and yet they’re one blood and one soul. Lesser beings would say there’s an age gap, but what do years matter after millennia? Papa is immortal, Special is not. Together they straddle eternity.  
  
Well, straddled. Papa swallows down that ancient ache, burning cold and vacant in his throat. Now Special straddles all on his own, wide-legged and confident like a king, living the dream they dreamed together. Papa doesn’t begrudge him the limelight, but when the lamps die down he wishes there was a sliver of shadow left for him. If nothing else, that he could travel the globe in a glass coffin of patience, waiting for Special’s reviving kiss.  
  
He should have kept to the eager young hopeless. Should have seen trouble coming a mile away when that baby-faced fucker came in the door. Should have shut it right there, should have slammed it in his face – _you haven’t got it, son_. But he was powerless to resist. The preening lads who tripped over themselves to catch his eye where he sat on his throne and gave out grains of attention, wisps of favour… they all disappeared from his vision when _that_ vision stepped over the threshold.  
  
He was older than the others and yet so young. He was a child wrapped in man-skin and tied up with a leather bow. He was ecstasy waiting to happen, he was grief in human form. He was trouble and grace, a double-edged sword waiting to plunge into a sheath grown weary of masculine charms. He was all and nothing, a wormhole of want, a death’s head of desire. He needed Papa like these worthless maggots had never needed him, and not only his power, not only the worldly gifts he could bestow. He truly wanted to become one with him.  
  
It had seemed an exciting game. Papa had welcomed the deceiver in, safe in the belief that he was the wily one. Not so this time. Special had taken all he had to give and set fire to the rest. No one could ever touch him again after a single caress from hands that made mortality a virtue. Not after fingers that raised to an art the banal and the everyday, that injected evil into beauty and opened wounds to show the colours – masking in vulnerability the dominion of the world. So much like Christ you might even say it was plagiarism. Damien’s second coming, a return to the stage in the starring role of Jesus. The horn-bearer donning the thorns to confuse the final few.  
  
But that was for the humans! The whole plan had been for humanity, to call them all into his fold. It had never been for Papa. The snares hadn’t been designed with him in mind – and yet they had. The Special One had weaved a silver thread from Papa’s cloak into the trap, and when he stepped into it, oh, he’d been lost at once. He’d felt it the second the jaws snapped shut, and yet he’d revelled in the feel of it and drunk the liquor of love from Special’s tongue, pretending it was his own free choice because it was, it _was_.  
  
And so he’d let himself be loved and lost and left behind. Special’s touch a faint scar on his skin, his damned voice a constant echo in these cold halls.  
  
Opening his eyes, Papa blinks at the bright flames. They bear no warmth, no comfort. Sitting here is just a ghoul’s charade, a ghost’s pretence at Hallmark perfection. That’s what happened when Special touched him: he made him human. Debased him with his flawlessness, stripped him of his robes and burned him with his brand. Made him _feel_. And now here he sits with his feet on a stool and his heart in shards and feels, and feels, and feels, but the ultimate gift is denied him. Human in spirit and human in heart, he’ll walk his castle forever, because the only thing Special didn’t give him was death.  
  
Even as he thinks it, there’s a flutter of wind, a whisper of change. The candles gutter, the big door bangs.  
  
“Papa.”  
  
Chest a ruin, he looks up.


	2. Kairos – the critical moment

His face is wiped fairly clean of paint, but smudges of black smeared into white remain at his temples, his jaw. It makes him look hollow and tired.  
  
“…” Papa tries to greet him: a hitchy sound of disbelief, of damned weakness. He gets to his feet, and Special follows his movements with his dead-fish eyes – judging, dismissing? Taunting?  
  
“No word of welcome then.”  
  
Papa hesitates, arms held out for an embrace that will never come. Why did he open them in the first place? They’ve never been ones for pointless gestures. When they embraced, they did it in salt and blood.  
  
Special looks down as he pulls off a glove, one finger at a time, and then the other one, slowly, almost obscenely. As if revealing his hands is an act of sin.  
  
Which, maybe it is. Papa looks on, eyes devouring the black leather that slides back from pale knuckles. “You have time to visit at a time like this?” he asks softly. No challenge, no accusation. Just a collection of words to fill the void.  
  
Special shrugs. “Time.” As if time doesn’t matter, and way back it didn’t. That’s another thing Papa has been robbed of: the meaninglessness of passing minutes. He used to live in all ages, to be ever-present and never-touched. And now he spends his days pondering the mysteries of Chronos by a heap of logs at the mercy of destruction? As if he can’t wait to wait.  
  
He swallows down dust. “You follow the dictate of human schedules, no? Why wouldn’t I ask about time?”  
  
Special purses his lips. “Mm.” Heaving a deep sigh, he moves past Papa and sinks into his chair, the only one placed by the fire, leaving Papa standing like a servant. Then he looks up with sudden concern on his face. “You get cold?”  
  
Papa opens his mouth, but no words come. He spreads his hands, indicating the fire. “A man can indulge in a bit of spectacle, no?”  
  
Special narrows his eyes. “I’d say it’s allowed.” A quick smile tugs at his lips. “But a mere evening by the fireplace seems a paltry replacement for the orgies you used to host.”  
  
Always with the words. Papa can’t stop a smile of his own. “I take what I can get these days.”  
  
“You always did.”  
  
Papa looks away. They can’t talk without the echo of subtext. They’re ever haunted by double meanings. He clears his throat. “Will you take sustenance?”  
  
Special leans back in the chair with a stifled moan. “Wine, if you have it.”  
  
_I’ll let you drink my blood and lick the residue from your lips_. “French mouthwash, but it’s not too bad once it dulls your senses.”  
  
“I trust your judgment.” He says it softly, meaningfully. It’s not much, but it’s too much.   
  
When Papa walks past him to the cupboard, he can’t stop himself: he brushes a light hand over Special’s shoulder – just to see what happens. There’s the tiniest of stiffenings, the minutest of gasps. A stirring of the air that only an immortal like Papa can detect.  
  
He uncorks the bottle and pours. The pearling scarlet liquid sounds thunderous in the quiet room. It sings against the crystal, warring with the fluttering fire. The second Papa stops pouring, Special holds up a hand. Gloveless, naked. Painted red by the flames. Papa places the glass between elegant fingers and wishes there was somewhere he too could sit. Now he remains at Special’s elbow, restless like a spirit as he takes a sip.  
  
“Is it adequate?”  
  
“Demon piss, but I’ll take anything.”  
  
… _on a day like this_ , hangs in the air. Papa considers asking, but he can’t bear the absence of a response. Instead he moves past his chair that is now Special’s chair and stands opposite him, hands folded over the robe covering his loins. Special’s eyes flick down, and then back up. Expressionless, blank.  
  
“So are you… alone?” The way he pauses so expertly before the adjective: a perfect actor, perfect showman. Timing down to a T.  
  
“Tonight? Yes.” As if he’s not always.  
  
“Big rooms for an old man.”  
  
“And many,” Papa agrees, refusing to be baited.  
  
Special smiles at the wine in his hand. It sparkles red and gold in the jumping light. “Like a Bram Stoker novel.”  
  
Papa cocks his head, searching his memory for a quote addressed to Jonathan Harker. But it’s too long since he read it, since he read anything at all.  
  
Special’s eyes glide from the wine to Papa, nails him with their cold glare. “Can I stay here tonight?”  
  
Just like that. As if there was no history between them. Papa almost lets slip a chuckle. “No, I’m going to banish you to the rickety hovel they please to call a bed and breakfast down by the crossroads. Of course you’re staying.”  
  
“But where?” Sudden mischief twinkles, just for a moment, in Special’s icy iris. “How can I pick a room from so many? And are any of them warmed up?”  
  
An invitation? Papa’s heart shudders in his chest, but he holds on to his emotionless façade with a grip of iron. “None of them, I’m afraid. Hot water bottles or company are your only alternatives.”  
  
Special gazes at him, face unreadable. After a while he says, “You’d think I kept a lot of company on the road.”  
  
Papa grips his poise tighter. “I have no opinions on the matter.”  
  
Special arches an eyebrow. “Which makes you one in a million.” The wine in his hand seems to tremble, but perhaps it’s an illusion. It’s just the fire that makes everything contourless and shaky.  
  
“I will change the sheets in my bed,” Papa says, surprising himself. “It stands next to the chimney leading from this very fireplace. You'll be warm.”  
  
Special stands up and steps close – really close, so close that their eyelashes seem to touch. “Save that for later.”  
  
“Save… what?”  
  
“The changing of the sheets.”  
  
With a shiver, Papa’s front is broken. Beneath the cracks, pinking skin shines through, revealing youth beneath all that decay. Special doesn’t smile, but a kind of triumph touches his features – that he can still do this, that he alone holds the key to Papa’s rejuvenation. He can bestow and withhold at a whim, and Papa is powerless to stop it.  
  
When his hand touches Papa’s cheek, it blooms with painful sweetness.


	3. Cornu et Copia

It’s too much. He already knows it will be too much. A horn of plenty in his actual body, pouring out riches whether he can take it or not. And yet he wants it – no, needs it. Needs to drink and eat of this forbidden fruit.  
  
They walk up the stairs together and Papa tastes the air, trying to find the sting of fire, a hint of smoke. Is he burning? Or is he burnt out?  
  
The bedroom is cold, he knows it with a part of his brain that still registers things outside of Special’s presence, but it doesn’t matter. He could be walking through snow or wading through a winter brook, it wouldn’t make a difference. He remembers Special’s question – _you get cold?_ – and shivers, once. He does get cold, of course he does, all the time, but it doesn’t _touch_ him. It doesn’t _get_ to him, to the place inside him that’s truly cold, that sits captive in ice that has nothing to do with crystallized water.  
  
The frozen hell that is his heart.  
  
His robes fall at the faintest whisper of fingertips. There’s a rustle from the gold brocade, a sigh when the fabric collapses on the floor. He stands there naked, half young, half old, like a hologram of himself. Special watches for a moment, face inscrutable. Then he raises his hands to his throat and begins to undo his buttons, but Papa stops him with a gesture.  
  
“No.”  
  
An attempt to regain some power in this game of chess? Let Special think so. Let him never find out the full power of willing containment. He should know, but Papa doesn’t think he does. Oh, he knows he looks good in his figure-hugging satin, but he doesn’t understand the simultaneous dominance and submission in it. Doesn’t see what Papa sees – his hampered movements, the hands-off forbiddenness of the way he’s shut inside the fabric like a princess in a shiny black tower – and, at the same time, how the strict row of buttons and the choke-hold of his standing collar signals authority both military and ecclesiastical.  
  
Papa’s old knees give way. They scream at smashing into the stone floor. Mouth level with the crease in Special’s trousers now, he exhales slowly, resignedly. Here they are again, and why should he second-guess it? What does it matter that Special will leave again tomorrow? Ecstasy isn’t meaningless because it‘s not forever. Who could even survive an eternity of joy? That’s where God went wrong. _Look at the world_ , Papa wants to scream at the heavens. _Do you think what these creatures really wish for is another Paradise? With their drugs and promiscuity and their carefully nurtured neuroses – do you really think happiness is what they’re after?_  
  
And the same goes for Papa. He doesn’t want married bliss, or the comfort of waking up beside a warm body day after day. He wants _this_ , the sheer terror-pleasure at the edge of the abyss, and the painful hope that it will happen again. It’s an addiction that feeds and bleeds in an ever-tempting cycle. Like the turning of the seasons, or the silent pull of gravity on a planet spinning in space.  
  
Or is that just what he wants to believe as he lowers the zipper and peels away as little of the fabric as he can? With Special’s rosy tulip of a cock wetly nudging his lips, is that what he needs to think to be able to open for him?  
  
Again, it doesn’t matter. He opens. _Everything_ opens. He’s another flower, black and purple and gold, spreading his petals for the rains. Letting himself be filled. Above him, Special closes his eyes and sighs, head leaned slightly back. From Papa’s position, he looks like a statue – a dark gleaming statue that lives and breathes, chest heaving beneath the silk. An inverted David, overlooked by the ancient masters.  
  
Papa draws back, and the stiff heft of it drops from his mouth – hangs unsatisfied, hot and heavy in front of him. Special looks down, eyes narrowed and cold. Papa looks back up in defiance. He doesn’t even know what he wants. Something. This is a fork in the road, in the tongue, and he’s waiting for something to happen. Something to let go, to hold on.  
  
Not until Special reaches out a hand does Papa realize what he’s been waiting for. An offered palm, a silent quote – _for saints have hands_ – an almost-acknowledgement that Papa isn’t alone in this. That the absence wears at Special too. The thought bursts into flame inside Papa’s skull: that Special is here because he needs it. That this exchange _means_ something.  
  
He takes the offered hand – _palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss_ – and gets to his feet. Special slips an arm around his naked waist and pulls him close, one leg between his like a dancing couple, cock pressing into Papa’s thigh. “Deceiver,” he breathes, and Papa is stung by the venom. “When will you ever have enough? When will you be done with me?”  
  
Something clicks in Papa’s throat in place of an answer. He doesn’t even understand the question.  
  
“Your gifts are worthless,” Special hisses.  
  
“It’s what you wanted,” Papa tries, but Special’s mouth contorts in a sneer.  
  
“Wanted? I wanted freedom to do as I pleased. This isn’t freedom. You make me pay for it all, still make me pay for it – with nightly terrors, with a mind filled with weeds. Yes, I’m free to travel the world, to put my soul into song, but it never fucking stops. My brain won’t shut up for a single second. I empty it, but it fills again and again. It’s a nightmare of abundance. A fucking jungle.”  
  
Papa shrugs in his arms. “You have everything you wished for.”  
  
Special’s eyes flash. “I do. You’re absolutely right, down to your choice of tense. Everything I wished for. But what I wish for now…” He breaks off, anger squeezing the air out of him. “I want a moment to breathe. And I want… You _made me_ want…” He clenches his teeth, stares with undisguised hatred at Papa. ”You looked into my soul and gave me what you saw there, and now I can’t be without it.”  
  
At first Papa doesn’t say anything. What is there to say? That’s what his gift is, and that is the price. The horrible realization that once you’ve tasted it, nothing else has any value. That chasing after the dream you can actually have is a lifelong curse. The Flying Dutchman, King Midas, and Icarus all rolled into one – only you don’t fall from the sky, and you don’t starve to death. You live on. You continue to want, and you can have it all, but the insatiable need will drive you mad.  
  
But with Special the spell went wrong. It snared them both.  
  
“I thought you worked free of the shackles,” Papa says finally. “You left, you stayed away. The curse can’t be working very well on you, or you wouldn’t have managed to do without me for so long.”  
  
“ _You_?” Special stares at him, disbelieving. For a moment, Papa thinks he’s read him all wrong – that the need doesn’t include this, here, now, with them. But then he whispers, “Do you know the price I pay to stay away? Do you know…” He draws a hissing breath and shakes his head. “Look at me!”  
  
Papa looks, but all he can see is the beauty of ruin: the sadness of a late summer twilight, the smile on the face of the newly deceased. Special is beautiful the way decay is beautiful. The fronds of mould, the withered boughs of winter trees. The algae on headstones.  
  
“You’ve ruined me…”  
  
“… for everything else.” Papa sighs. He teeters on the edge of confessing, of telling him everything. Of showing his mirror hurt. But this is the first time in many years that he’s regained some sort of upper hand. Let the conniving weasel feel it for once.  
  
And Special feels it, Papa is sure of that. His grip on Papa’s hand is crushing, his arm around him a coiled snake of repressed emotion. He’s fighting hard not to give it all away, but for every beat of his pulse he’s inscribing the message into Papa’s skin.  
  
“I’m going to take you with me,” he says low in his throat. “I’m going to make you mine.”  
  
Papa breathes shallowly. He has no idea what that means. He wants it with all his being, but it may be the last thing he wants. To be possessed by someone, to be locked up… it goes against everything he is. He’s the one to hold and own. He’s the lord of everyone.  
  
He’s about to reply – something, anything – but Special leans forward and captures his lips. He sucks them in, almost draws blood in a ferocious, flesh-eating kiss. Papa staggers a little. This is what he missed. This is the anger and desire he’s longed for all these dark nights away from his angel of death. This is the spell that spilled over.  
  
“How do you mean,” he manages through slipping lips, “take me with you?”  
  
“Don’t you worry about that,” Special murmurs, steering him towards the bed. Cool cotton presses against his calves the moment before he falls on his back. The mattress groans, and then shudders under Special’s weight as he crawls onto Papa’s supine body with the look of a silken predator. A panther on the prowl, teeth itching to sink into hot flesh.  
  
He lowers his head over Papa’s groin and swallows him whole. No warning, no teasing. Just hunger and a mouth clamping shut on a rod of red hot tingling. Sucking hard, too hard, always too much with this fucker, always over the top and too good. He can’t wait, doesn’t understand the value of holding back, keeping things untidy and frayed, the attraction of ugliness: no, he wants it all, wants control and bliss and perfection. When he sucks Papa, it’s him polishing off the rough edges. A kind of cleaning up, a kind of filing down. Removing all doubt and inserting himself in its place. _This is what it’s going to be from now on. I’m calling the shots, and the shots are going to be absolutely flawless._  
  
Papa slips free of the hot suction and has the time to breathe in a raucous moan before Special parts his legs and enters him. Hanging over him on trembly arms, hair come loose from its careful swoop and swaying wet in his face, he hisses in that theatrical voice that should be ridiculous but isn’t, “You’re about to get what you fucking want.”  
  
And Papa knows that he knows, but it doesn’t matter, because the pounding is a celestial door to oblivion.


	4. Pathos – Mode of Persuasion

At the outermost edge of sleep, behind the thinning of the nightly mists, there’s a warm body. A wrongness that haunts his return to consciousness, a jarring colour: coral, perhaps, or a warm leafy green. Something so alien to his dark aesthetic it jolts him awake.  
  
He turns his head to look at the man beside him, where he lies on his stomach with his arms underneath the pillow. Papa's Special One, here in his bed, ghoulishness hooded by sleep. But he still looks stern, even in the arms of Morpheus. As if he’s arguing with himself about whether or not to dream.  
  
With a twinge in his heart, Papa knows this is the moment: this is the one chance he has to escape. As soon as the sun rises, Special will take charge and Papa won’t do a thing to resist when those cold eyes look on him. His only hope is to steal away while they’re closed.  
  
Inching closer, he lays a hand on the small of Special’s back. It curves deliciously beneath the blanket, and Special sighs in his sleep. He looks so harmless now, so unaware. That’s the terrible attraction of his waking gaze: it’s so _aware_. It knows everything.  
  
Papa’s hand moves of its own accord, slips beneath the sheets. Special moans as he trails gentle fingers over sleep-warm skin. Kittenish and steel hard, the same bundle of contradictions as last night, but now at Papa’s mercy.  
  
Mercy… He’s had too much of it for this upstart. He’s granted too many favours, made too many concessions. He’s the original one, the prime mover. How has he bowed and scraped before this crow in borrowed feathers? Special should be the one grovelling.  
  
Time to reverse the roles.  
  
Folding away the blanket, Papa rounds one pleasantly bunched buttock and cups it, revelling in the perfect way it moulds itself to his palm. Like a missing part of himself, an essential vitamin of flesh and blood. Beneath silky skin, muscle stretches from bone to bone, holding this beautiful temple together. It’s too banal to think about: all this earthly delight is just a collection of cells, an organism constantly fighting to stay alive even through this mirror image of death.  
  
Sliding careful fingers up the cleft, Papa is half surprised to feel his own flesh tightening again and filling with blood. He truly thought those days were over, that dreams were all he had left, but one touch from the miracle under his hand has been enough to awaken that old beast again. And now he’s the one to touch, to waken.  
  
Special shifts on the mattress and groans, eyes still closed but his spirit ascending from the deep – called back to consciousness by Papa’s expert fingers. Papa pushes ever so slightly and feels the hot folds give way.  
  
“Already?” the muffled grunt comes from the pillow, and Papa stops. Special cracks an eye open and shines its evil light at him. “I thought you’d be far away by now.”  
  
It’s a confirmation of their exchange last night: a reminder that Special means to rob Papa from this place, that allowing it means Papa is handing over the last shred of his power. Well, before that happens he can use it one final time. Mark his dominance by taking care of his guest like only he can – by waiting on him, if not hand and foot, then cock and ass.  
  
Splaying his free hand on Special’s back, he moves between his legs and leans down to trail his tongue down the volcanic crevice. Special bucks and grips the pillow. Blood rushing to his head, Papa pushes the tip of his tongue at the opening. A gasp, entirely satisfactory. It’s an admission. A ceding, and Papa doesn’t wait for more encouragement. He delves deeper, mining the secrets of the man beneath him with relentless care. He hears how unbearable it is in the stifled sounds Special makes. He doesn’t want to be this affected, but contrary to what he’s thought, Papa still has it. His clever tongue is soft and hard, soothing like a caress and stinging like a bee.  
  
Lying on his stomach must be agony by now.  
  
Sure enough, Special wrenches free of Papa’s grip and rolls onto his back, grabbing Papa’s arm and pulling him up in the same motion. His eyes are intent like a cat’s. Cupping Papa’s neck, he forces him down for a filthy kiss. Tasting himself on Papa’s breath?  
  
“What are you doing?” he mutters against Papa’s lips.  
  
“Merely offering some basic hospitality.”  
  
“Mm, very basic.”  
  
“For me, I’d say yes.”  
  
There’s a fleeting shadow of dismay on Special’s face, and the sight of it pinches Papa’s heart. He’s jealous? He begrudges those who came before him the special treatment he’s getting now? _Oh yes, dwell on it, my sweet cruel one. Stop and wonder. Scrabble to keep what’s yours._  
  
But the moment is gone too soon, and Special’s face closes again. He refuses to let the images crowd into his brain, then, rejects the memory of all those asses Papa has licked and penetrated? It’s pathetic. So Special doesn’t even know? Doesn’t understand that penetration is a ruse. That to truly rule is to devour. Does the plankton crow in triumph as it enters the mouth of the whale? Does the mouse feel victorious sliding down the snake’s throat? No, it’s the eater who’s in charge. And as Papa lies on his back, a part of him glows in Schadenfreude. _Yes, go ahead, push your cock in, tell yourself you’re staking a claim. Who’s the one squeezing that juice out of you? Who’s the one trapping you, milking you dry?_  
  
_I am. Always and ever._  
  
Special whimpers as he succumbs once again to the repetitive motion. Helpless in Papa’s clutches, he must move, must amp up the friction to the point of euphoria. He needs this: the vice-like grip on his cock that gives as much as it takes when he grinds against it. Special’s breath is a monsoon against Papa’s throat, and his teeth graze it in a restrained pantomime of feeding. Canines pricking skin for each thrust, pushing deep, until _rrrrip!_ the surface breaks and blood beads under his tongue. He laps at it, it’s not much, but Papa knows the taste will tip him over the edge.  
  
Yes, here it comes. With a gasp that sounds as reluctant as it is ecstatic, Special pushes deep, deeper than before and throws his head back, lips smudged with red and eyes rolled back. A picture of rapture, of utter debauchery. Something to make the Gloating One up there behind his pearly gates gnash his teeth. Because it doesn’t get more depraved than this: a mortal man fucking the Devil’s own pope, mouth dripping with his blood as he comes.  
  
But even as he smiles through the triumph, Papa’s wrists feel invisible shackles clank shut. From this moment on, he’s Special’s prisoner.  
  
It’s time to go.


	5. Ethos – The Authority On These Matters

The roar of plane engines shudder through the wood. Papa stares at the contourless black of his confinement: a travelling coffin, custom-made. A lid to keep him hidden, and the corpses of his aborted peers spread out around him.

Sons? Heh. They’re useless puppets, always were, and he’s the last man standing of a bloodline that once spat on him. That’s how strong the seed is. They’re not his sons. He doesn’t have sons. He would have had to fuck a woman to beget them, no?

But they’re the shadows of his and Special’s master plan, so they have a kind of value. They danced their dance and were discarded, but Special inhabited them all, body and blood. They’re cloaks and masks, and feebly beating hearts, but sometimes when Papa forgets to keep up his guard he misses them. Misses the excitement of each new face, each renewal of vows.

_YOUR SIN IS PUNISHING ITSELF. SUCK IT UP, PRINCESS._

He stiffens, heart suspended in his chest. Did he imagine that voice? Was it just a by-product of the plane starting to descend, the stomach-sucking thrill of it?

_NO. I’M HERE. I’M ALWAYS HERE._

Papa groans. _I don’t have the time to talk to you._

_INACCURATE. YOU HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE TOUCHDOWN._

__

__

_Oh my god._

_THAT WOULD BE GOD WITH A CAPITAL G. DON’T THINK I CAN’T HEAR YOUR INSUBORDINATION._

Papa sighs, and his collar scrapes against the sides of the coffin. He hasn’t talked to God for a long time. What would be the point? They both know where they stand. But he’s been feeling a change: now that he thinks back on it, he knows there’s been a shift. God is taking an interest in his world again – because people aren’t taking much of an interest in him?

That doesn’t explain why he’s taking an interest in Papa, though.

_What do you want?_

_OH, JUST THE USUAL. HAND OUT ETERNAL LIFE, ALL THAT JIVE._

Papa purses his lips in the darkness of the coffin. _I already have eternal life_. But just thinking it makes something hurt under his skin. As if Special’s mortal seed has merged with him, but now it wants out.

_MY BAD_ , God preens. _I MEANT ETERNAL HAPPINESS. THERE’S ACTUALLY A POSITION COMING UP –_

_So you watched._

God is quiet for the longest time. Then there’s an irritated rumble. _SO WHAT IF I DID?_

Papa rolls his eyes, knowing God can see it. He sees everything, as he never ceases to inform everyone. Papa can just imagine the leer plastered on his face as he watched every thrust and parry of Papa’s and Special’s little morning ritual.

_You watched, and now you’re using what you saw to persuade me to perjure myself. You understand why some people find you a bit of an asshole?_

_IT’S MY MAIN BUSINESS – CHECKING ON PEOPLE’S SEX LIVES. YOU’RE NOT EXEMPT._

_Oh, splendid._. Papa wants to shake his head, but the space he’s in is too confined. _Stalking piece of excrement. Did you enjoy it?_

_I FOUND THE CONVULSIONS OF YOUR WITHERED OLD PROSTATE FAIRLY AMUSING._

_It’s not_ … withered, he wants to say, but God already knows that. He’s only taunting him to make him defensive, to tease out a mistake. People say the Devil has a forked tongue, but what about that megalomaniac in the sky? He invented the stuff. He’s the biggest deceiver of them all. But he’s been so quiet lately, Papa has almost forgotten.

When he was young, God was everywhere – _and_ the Devil. But now? Now no one believes in anything. Well, Special will remind them. He’s bringing belief back into the world. That’s his mission. And Papa believes too, he who lost all illusions when he surpassed Satan. Because what do you do when your heroes step down from their pedestal? What do you hold on to when the Devil himself can’t keep up with his own evil?

You find someone new, that’s what. You seek that seed of horror in the eyes of a cherub. You make him yours, you nurture him so he can one day take Satan’s place and be your bride.

_HE DOES HAVE A STRANGE POWER OVER YOU, DOESN’T HE? IT INTERESTS ME. MAYBE I SHOULD OFFER HIM MORE, SEE WHAT HAPPENS._

For the first time since God started talking, Papa feels a whisper of fear. What does he mean?

There’s the itchy, awful sound of God snickering. _SO EASY TO UNDO. DOES HE KNOW?_

_I thought you knew everything._

_OH, I HAVE FULL CLEARANCE WHEN IT COMES TO YOU. SATAN LOST THE KEY TO THAT LITTLE SHRINE A LONG TIME AGO._

Papa stares into the dark. What? He’s been betrayed by the Devil himself? As a servant of sin, he should have certain privileges. His inner frostscape should be off limits to everyone, including the so called creator. And now he’s to understand that God can read his every thought, measure every beat of his heart?

There’s more at stake than he thought, then. God has gained a new weapon – but then why reveal it at this time? Why willingly force his own hand? Perhaps to make Papa rush headlong into catastrophe. To make him blab, make him panic and tell all. But to what end? Whatever can God think to gain from having the Devil’s pope make a fool of himself in front of the man he –

His throat closes. He can’t breathe. God. That’s it, isn’t it? What God _is_. He never stops talking about it, does he? And now he thinks he can snare Papa in those treacherous webs?

_Never fear_ , he says, struggling to keep terror out of his mental voice. _Special has no sway over this evil old heart._

_OOH, SPECIAL, I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CALL HIM THAT. DOES IT FEEL SPECIAL WHEN HIS COCK HITS ROCK BOTTOM? OR IS IT THE WAY HE CUDDLES AFTERWARDS? THE WAY HE SPEAKS SO LOVINGLY TO HIS DODDERING MENTOR?_

There’s the definitive thud of wheels touching tarmac. Papa searches for a comeback, but comes up blank.

God snickers again. _WELL, I’M GLAD WE HAD THIS LITTLE CHAT – AND I’M GLAD YOU’RE JOINING “SPECIAL” ON HIS TRAVELS. CONSIDER IT YOUR OWN PERSONAL FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT. SEE IF YOU DON’T COME TO ME AT THE END OF THEM._

With that he’s gone. Papa’s skull feels empty and numb in the absence of that thunderous voice. The plane brakes to a stop and the engines die down to a faint hum. Clanks and bangs reveal the busywork outside, and within minutes, rough hands grab hold of his coffin and haul it out. Load it onto what must be a lorry.

Papa swallows drily, apprehension flooding him with marshy water. He only has an hour or so to prepare for spending every minute of every day with Special. If he thought being without him was bad, how will he survive his presence? Worse, has God been talking to him too? Given some hints, prepared a trap? A panicked thought: is all of this His plan? Has Papa been so hoodwinked?

He must conquer this. He must. And he already knows the coming weeks will be worse than forty days in the desert. Because Jesus never really had a choice, daddy's boy that he was. He was never in any danger of falling. His temptation was just a bedtime story for the stupid hordes. But Papa?

Come twilight, he'll be stepping straight into the lion's mouth.


	6. Pronuntiatio – Delivery/Deliverance

A single church organ plays in the darkness. It seeks a way through the compact night, replete with whispers and breathless anticipation. It’s fumbling with gentle fingers to find a path, to sneak inside the hearts of every single soul who have dared to enter here. Even Papa holds his breath in the wings, the outlines of musicians moving past him up the stairs, up towards the exposed panopticon of the stage. It’s quiet now – the crouching stillness of the cat – but in a mere minute, all hell will break loose.

Special walks past him, the last one to go out, and he trails light fingers across Papa’s hip, his elbow, strokes down his arm and teases up his hand to reach for him and almost grab hold. Turns for a second to nail him with that frosty stare and the hint of a smile – Papa’s arm half raised, drawn by the power of him – and then off he goes, into the arms of thousands. There’s a screech in Papa’s chest as his fist closes on nothing. As if Special is leaving forever, when he’s only jogging up the stairs to hold court for a while.

But the simple truth belies a bigger one: he’s going to _give himself_ to them – give them the best part of himself, the part Papa wants to tie down and squeeze to death. He stands helpless in the shadows and stares as the lights explode into being, like the first day all over again: it’s the parting of light from darkness and the celestial dance that started then and hasn’t slowed down since. The music soars, guitars and keys and drums and bass, and the light splashes on Special where he crowns the stage, ghastly and glorious. As the auditorium erupts in screams, he holds his arms out to them, embracing them all. He’s a beacon of darkness, a charity for the hopeless. And when his voice resounds through the air, it’s a sizzle down Papa’s neck. Special isn’t just singing, he’s pulling his soul out with an iron fist, ripping his heart from its cage and holding it aloft, dripping darkly, like a sacrifice.

Papa shudders in equal parts horror and euphoria. He’s never seen him in action, never witnessed the transformation from flesh to flame. From the back, Special looks like the incarnation of Papa’s every desire. The shafts of light cut themselves on his dark silhouette. A platitude comes to mind – that the smallest light can banish any darkness. Well, look at this. You can shine the brightest lamp, but it only takes one man to stand in front of it and cover the world with his shadow. Everywhere he goes, the spots follow him and are devoured. Where he plants his feet, he slices through the beams. Nothing can get past him.

Special pauses in his singing, holding the microphone to his chest and staring out at the crowd. He knows. He feels it too. What Papa and he only dreamed of, what they planned but didn’t see the full scope of – it’s now conceived. It’s born and growing in the world. When the masses out there open their throats in praise, when they sing Special’s words back at him, it’s more than an invocation. It’s the realization of the impossible. A sea of lonely creatures coming together, truly coming together for one purpose. Yes, they talked about the dominion of the world, of an infernal new era, but this is that era not only nascent but adolescent. Special has become a demi-god. He has them in his fist and they’re delirious to be so trapped.

It’s breath-taking. It’s there in the lyrics, in everything Special has written, everything he has sung, but now it comes true. Like the quill of a prophet, moved by a hellish hand, spilling words on the page and the world alike. A flow of ink that quenches and drowns. A heart of darkness emptied into the soil, to be drunk by malefic flowers.

_BUT YOU DON’T WISH EVIL ON HIM, DO YOU?_

Papa clutches his robes tighter to bar God entrance, to hide from that all-seeing eye. But even as he tries to pretend, a shudder rips through him to see Special look at someone in the audience. He reaches for and beckons to them, and Papa battles panic as he touches the hands of randoms, pouring his grace into cupped palms pulsing with pride. They’re nothing to him, they’re insects. But when Special starts writhing against the mic stand, trailing a gloved hand down the sterile steel of it, crotch sliding wantonly upwards, miming not a thrust, but the long, slow slide that burrows deep, that wants to dig a grave inside you, pain races through Papa like a disease. 

He can’t control it. He has God’s hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him. He has a din of confusion in his head. Demons screaming, wishes unfulfilled. _I love him!_ tears through his inner thunderscape, fearful and stuttering, a mewling cry from a wounded beast. _I love him_ … It’s inscribed in his tendons and bone. His muscles sing with it. For every beat of his pulse, Special beats with it. Papa has always known there’s desire, too much of it, and possessiveness and greed. But to call it love? That would be the end of him. That’s how God snares his human playthings, and Papa is _not_ going to be one of them.

He sinks to his knees and bows his head. “Father in hell,” he whispers, spreading his arms and touching his forehead to the floor. “Father!”

Nothing. There’s just silence, and the rhythmic pumping of ecstasy out there on the stage. Despair rises in Papa like a pillar of acid. Has Satan abdicated completely? Doesn’t he care anymore? Is he content to sit on his own, contemplating the nature of sulphur while his empire crumbles?

“Father!” he screams without even hearing himself through the clamour of music, and there’s the faintest stirring of consciousness, a kraken-deep rumbling in the earth. “Help me,” he moans, lips grazing dusty floor. 

At once there’s a whirling of wind – an in-breath, an awakening. If there had been candles they would have guttered.

_State your message._

“Urgent,” Papa bursts out. “Desperate. God is winning!” He doesn’t know where the words come from, but when he says them, it’s true. Like a dawn, like the sun bursting over the horizon with full might: this isn’t just about him and his petty problems. There’s a force in the world that’s running unchecked. God lays waste to all before him. He whispers sweet nothings in the ears of enemies and sits back to watch them burn each other at the stake. He sows incompatible seeds across borders and nurtures the buds until they blossom in blood.

All in the name of love.

He thinks all this, and Satan knows. Papa feels him feel it, feels him slowly wake up to the realization that the world without him is coming apart at the seams.

“How could this happen?” Papa wails. “How could you let it go so far?”

But he already knows. He’s been complicit in the complacency. He is supposed to be the Devil’s foremost authority on Earth, and what has he done to live up to his title? Taken over completely out of ambition, and then let it all go to seed while he withered away by the fireplace, consumed with paltry longing. Meanwhile, Special is out there working, gathering forces for a war Papa suddenly knows must take place.

Satan rises to his full height, thundering out the traditional words. _Do you swear fealty to me forever and always?_

“I already did, eons ago.”

_I need new vows. I need more souls. Hell is empty, and all the devils have defected. I’m weak, child! You have to help him. Gather the troops. We must relegate God to his rightful place._

“I want to,” Papa whispers, but he feels winded and impotent. “How?”

_You need to be a part of the rituals. You have your own following, or have you forgotten? There are people who would worship at your feet if you’d just let them. People who long for your face. Sheep who prefer a different shepherd. Join him on the podium, my son!_

Papa draws a trembling breath. _Son_ … There’s something he should understand, but it flutters just out of consciousness.

“But father… there is something else.”

_I know._

Papa swallows, waiting for the rod to come down full force on him, but Satan just heaves a sigh that shakes the floor. _It will be your sacrifice._

“But God –”

_Never mind him. He’s too puffed up to see retaliation coming. He thinks he’s got the upper hand? It will be his undoing. Pride ever was his fatal flaw._

Papa smiles against the floor, but his smile is cropped by a vicious snarl.

_Don't fool yourself, there will be a price. A horrendous price, but one you will gladly pay when the time comes. Join him, my child. Gather the masses, say the mass. When balance is restored, you will get your punishment and your reward._

As if they are one and the same.

A wind blows through the space and leaves it empty, dark, and quiet. An absolute vacuum, the absence of presence. Papa breathes shakily against the floor, and the sound of it reverberates through his skull.

Only then do the sounds of the concert creep back into his consciousness, and the gears of time start grinding again.

“I’ll do your bidding,” he whispers to no one, as if to convince himself. When he rises to his feet, he feels invigorated, strengthened in a resolve he should have had ages ago. There’s more at stake than his treacherous heart. His weakness is only the symptom of a much bigger problem.

A world on the brink of chaos.


	7. Tropos – For Artistic Effect

His elation lasts for the hour or so that remains of the concert. When it’s done and Special comes off stage to grab Papa’s arm and bundle him into a waiting car, the sweet horror of it has him dissolving in doubt. Just now he was the Devil’s instrument, ready to declare war on God himself, and now? Now he sits squashed against Special, high on his sweat and the speed of the darkling streets, and all he wants is to fuck right there in the backseat.

But when they reach their destination, Special doesn’t take Papa to his room. Instead he finds a fire escape and leads the way up narrow stairs to the roof of whatever hotel they’re staying at, looking out over whatever city. Cloudless climes and starry fucking skies. There’s even an almost-full moon.

Is that Special’s actual plan? To _romance_ him?

_Forty days in the desert._

Special sighs as he sits on a bench that seems put there purely out of malice. Papa glares at it, holding it personally responsible for any missteps he might make. But Special looks up at him like the stern master he is, and Papa is compelled to sit. Special’s eyes crinkle slightly. “So obedient.”

Papa says nothing to that.

Special hitches up a corner of his mouth, as if smiling properly is too much effort. “I like obedient. I’ll have to explore what that means more fully.”

Still Papa says nothing, but the spectre of their morning at the castle hovers between them. Surely Special must sense a smidgen of the exchange that happened? That he’s not _entirely_ in charge?

Only he is. Because Papa can’t let go, can’t relax. He has to gauge the beating barometer behind his ribs at every turn, make sure he’s not succumbing to his enemy in the sky. Once again he wonders whether Special is in on it, whether he and God planned this together. Maybe that’s his underhanded way of getting back at Papa, of working free of the curse: to transform his desire into something awful, to catch him in the act of affection?

The very word makes Papa’s stomach turn.

Special watches him, face impassive. Does he guess? Maybe he can read Papa’s thoughts as easily as God can. “Why so morose?” he asks, and Papa has to laugh, even though it’s bitter.

“I’m on a hotel roof staring at the night sky with my jailor. What expression would be appropriate?”

Special crosses his arms and looks up at the moon. “What made you choose me?” he mumbles.

Papa raises eyebrows Special doesn’t see. “I didn’t. You did.”

“Lie.”

Papa clasps his hands in his lap and stifles a sigh. “Maybe we chose each other.”

Special stiffens slightly, and Papa regrets the wording. He teeters so close to the wrong kind of language, the off-limits realm of emotion. The heavenly tripwire he now knows exists.

Special turns to gaze at him with a mixture of disdain and reluctant respect in his eyes. “Why are you here?” he insists.

The way he looks brings fire out of Papa’s cells, it incinerates him from within. “You’re the one who took me,” he points out.

“But you let me.” Special’s voice is soft and low, even supplicant. Another trap?

Papa stares out at the glittering city, a reflection of the infinite spangles above. “You need my guidance.”

Special snorts. “Don’t believe your own yarns. I’m the same as I ever was. I don’t need ‘guidance’.”

“Your mask does.”

“My mask.” He spits the word. “I hate it.”

“I know.” Papa isn’t sure if he feels sympathy or triumph. Special chafes under his new persona. He knows he’s left the handsomest one behind and has to work twice as hard to convince with suaveness what he now lacks in bone structure. _Sad to see erotic opportunities go?_

As if to chase the thought from his mind, Special grabs Papa's chin and bores his gaze into his eyes. “I wish I understood you.”

_Likewise._

“You will do what I ask.”

“Yes.”

“Every night.”

“Every night and every morning.”

Special’s eyes narrow. “Such lip.”

Papa’s gaze drops to Special’s mouth. “Then stop me.”

A moment’s hesitation. _Yes, that was an order_. With a twitch in his cheek, Special tilts his head and brings their mouths together. Inside Papa’s eyelids there are swirls of darkness, pulsing red. God hiding in the vapours, laughing at the way he’s falling, falling, has always been falling. Just waiting for him to go splat on the bedrock.

_Help._

But Special’s tongue is the only anchor he has. Warm and wet, it paints wicked shapes in his mouth. Teases and tickles, pulls its punches but pushes every barrier. Papa gasps under the onslaught. Where is this going? Sex under the stars? As dangers go, surely that must be above entry level. Is it part of the plan, is this Divine Seduction 101 and he’s lapping it up like the loyal little doggie he is nowadays? Is every move from now on designed to trap him?

But sex isn’t love, he reminds himself. Sex is lust and greed and egotism at its best. He’ll be fine.

Their lips slip apart and a string of saliva lands, cooling, on Papa’s chin. The undignified drooling of the carnal. He breathes in and opens his eyes – when did he close them? – only to see Special staring intently at him. Gauging his success so far? Papa wants to ask, to scream at him, _What do you want? When will you give up?_ But it’s too close to the questions Special asked him – _When will you be done with me?_ – and it’s all too confusing and he can’t think about anything but the hand stroking upwards now, inside his robe, finding tightening muscles and quivering skin.

Special cocks his head. “You’re strange tonight.”

The look Papa gives him is careful. “How do I displease?”

“No, you…” Special peruses his face, looking pensive. “There’s something different. You’re holding back. You can’t hold back. Not ever. Why do you think you’re here?”

Papa shakes his head at the convolutedness of it all. “Just now you were asking me why I was here. Whose choice are we talking about now?”

Special’s hand withdraws, leaving a cold patch on Papa’s skin. “I don’t know.” He looks up at the carved-silver penny where it hangs shrouded in wisps of cloud, and his eyebrows dip in displeasure. “I tried to write earlier.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

“I thought your head was an unweeded garden.”

“It is, but…” Special rubs his forehead. “Sometimes it’s quiet. I don’t know how to explain. I work in a fucking frenzy, just to get it out of my system, to empty the cup and earn some peace and quiet for once… but there never is. I’m either frantic or exhausted. Like there’s a switch, and it’s either on or off, and I can never just _be_.”

Papa’s ribs contract at the sound of that churchyard fatigue. The bone-deep weariness that pulls willing elders to a welcoming grave. “Maybe _I_ can give you some peace.”

Instead of eagerness, Papa detects resignation. “So you want to fuck me?”

The question is so sudden, Papa can’t find a suitable response. He remembers revelling in being the devourer – and this time Special wants that privilege? He hesitates, unsure what Special wants from him.

When he speaks again, Special's voice is leaden. “You’ll sleep in my bed, but I want to sleep tonight. Nothing else.”

“Are you sure –”

“You can go without for one night, can’t you?” Special snarls. “Lascivious old goat.”

Papa should take the slur as a compliment, but something in Special’s tone cuts him. Idiotic. There’s no reason why he should care about his minion’s petty moods.

_AND YET YOU DO._

Special glares at him. “Is that why you’re joining me? To get your fucking juices flowing?”

Papa is silenced. He only wanted to please, but Special looks… not angry, exactly. But reproachful. Miserable. As if Papa’s need for him is suddenly a burden instead of an ace up his sleeve. Which doesn’t make sense. Special has always crowed over how easily he can seduce. It’s the pinnacle of his every achievement, the nature of his success: seduction. Always. The way he holds sway over a seething congregation – what is it but aural fornication?

But when Special raises hesitant hands to his face, something else is taking place, something dangerous. He pauses for a moment, fingertips poised on jaw, temple and forehead: a moment, frozen before the jump, a snapshot of the almost-choice, the reaching for the irreversible. The deep breath before plunging a sword into the only thing you love.

Papa draws a sudden breath, fearing the worst. He’s not going to…?

“Well, try to crave _this_.” Special’s fingers bend into claws as he digs into his flesh, prying away the mask. It’s part of him, it must hurt, but he does it: peels the layers of the cardinal from skin that smarts and glows an angry, tortured pink. Beneath the mask, big, blinking eyes appear, studded with damp lashes. A gaze filled with galaxies, a mouth caught between laughter and tears.

Papa gasps. _D-don’t…_

But it’s too late. Special is completely naked. The cardinal is gone, and he’s showing his true face for the first time since forever. Papa has forgotten how utterly mortal it looks, and the reminder is an eagle’s cry in his chest. This is Special’s soul, bared on this roof, under the stars. The smoothness of youth on the cusp of middle age. The innocence of too much knowledge.

As Papa stumbles from the bench and flees, he hears the echo of God laughing.


	8. Caesura

He has to return when the lights die down and every sound is muted to a faint whisper. He moves into their room with the soft footfall of the guilty, but Special says nothing. Just lets Papa hold him through the night, the true him, no mask back in place and no confining clothes wrapped around his limbs. Just a naked man, pink lips jammed against the pillow as he breathes in starts, battling invisible foes in his sleep.  
  
Papa doesn’t sleep at all. His arm hurts from Special’s weight, he can’t breathe for lying squashed against his back, and the heat between them is stifling. But Papa won’t move. Won’t disturb the treasure in his arms.  
  
_HAHAHA_.  
  
Papa burrows deeper into Special’s neck.


	9. Inventio – How To Proceed

They eat breakfast together the way they do everything else together. A startlingly mundane activity that doesn’t do much for either’s hellish image, but even a pope has to eat. Even a demi-god needs coffee. 

Special sits stirring a spoon in his cup, staring at the swirling circles with his chin in his hand, when his eyes suddenly flick up to Papa. “So.” He sits back for a moment, eyes narrowed. Then he reaches into a bag to retrieve a big book that he slams onto the table. “The Bible.”

Papa almost chokes on his croissant. (Damn those French and their hedonistic ways – he has to have one.) “What the…?”

“I need to clear something up.” Special flips some pages, and the book falls open on the passage about Sodom. “How many people have you killed?”

“Killed?” Papa gives a little chuckle. “That depends how you look at it.”

Special gazes at him impassively. “Yes? Go on.”

Papa shifts in his seat. “Indirectly I’ve killed millions.”

“How do you mean, ‘indirectly’?”

Papa frowns at his half-eaten croissant. Special should already know this. It’s how the world works. Most sins aren’t committed knife in hand, in murderous rage. Most of them are incidental, impersonal, even invisible. “Through structures built by humans,” he mutters. “Bad contracts, poisons, that sort of thing.”

Special cocks his head. “Poisons.”

“Like… on bananas.” Papa makes a face. “Pesticides.”

Special looks ready to faint. “ _Bananas_?”

Papa feels an unaccustomed blush creep over his face. “Death by proxy, from a distance,” he explains testily. “Pushing a button here and never seeing the victim fall on the other side of the world. It’s how most souls are snared. By buying a new pair of jeans or pouring perfectly good coffee down the sink.”

Special nods slowly. “And how many have you raped?”

Now Papa grows really uncomfortable. “None per se. I may have used my charms to…”

“… Seduce them.”

“Yes.”

“But you never raped anyone.”

“I suppose not." Itching to rationalize, he adds, "But God doesn’t like sex at all, does he? Just pushing a thumb up your ass has him all hot and bothered.”

Special looks at him with his usual coldness, but there’s something else too – something soft shining through the mask. A kind of amusement. The way even a murderer has to smile at a clumsy puppy. “But what exactly is it that makes you _evil_?”

Papa draws a breath that has no sentence hanging off it. He gapes stupidly, hot and cold in Special's unwavering spotlight. “What is this, the Spanish inquisition?” he tries to joke.

“Lot offers his daughters for the mob to rape.” Special gestures at the Bible between them. “To make them spare the angels who visit him. And Lot was a virtuous man, according to God. Which sounds a lot like God simply being greedy and wanting to keep his foot soldiers intact, but what the hell do I know? So I want you to tell me: what is evil? In your view.”

“Evil is… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You’re the Devil’s authority on Earth.”

“Well, what about you?” Papa shoots back. “How are you evil? I don’t see you going around killing people.”

“Not _directly_.” Special smirks. “But I have been known to eat the odd banana.”

 _Banana as in… Noted._ Papa rolls his eyes. “Well, that sense of humour toes the line, anyway.”

Special stifles a laugh that makes the frost in his eye glitter. “Hey, I’m serious. Have we forgotten who we are? Have we abdicated completely?”

It's so close to Papa's own thoughts, unease crawls over his skin like lice. “What are you saying? That you want to kill someone? Rape someone?”

Special purses his lips. “Not really.”

Papa snorts a laugh. “Can’t be bothered to do the Devil’s work?”

“That’s just it, though,” Special insists. “What is the Devil’s work?” Once again he indicates the Bible. “Stoning witches, keeping slaves. Raping virgins and marrying them. It’s all him. So what exactly do we contribute in a world like that? I want you to tell me. What is Satan’s purpose?”

Papa sighs. It’s a thorny area, no doubt about it. “Do what thou wilt,” he says, since it’s one true and tested adage, even if he didn’t formulate it.

“Yes, but…” Special gnaws at his lip. “What if what you want to do…”

… _isn’t evil_ , hangs between them, and Papa’s stomach bottoms out. _Don’t ask me_ , he wants to say, _I’m the last person to ask_. But who else can Special ask? If Papa doesn’t know, who does?

Silence grows between them, a silence filled with the quiet clanging of cups against saucers, of forks against porcelain. The staff are starting to clear away the dishes.

“Okay,” Special says, leaning forward and gesturing earnestly. “So the way I see it the problem is this: God is exceeding his brief, yes? Religion has splintered, and each faction has stolen a sliver of hell. Some promote violence, others fornication. With nothing left for the dark side, the world is tipping over like a giant Titanic, bobbing with its stern in the air, half its passengers swallowing icy water beneath the surface. And it’s time for the hull to break.”

Papa stares at him, uncertain. Is he penning lyrics as he speaks? Is this conversation some kind of instant poetry?

“We can’t have ministers of hell pretending to be good or angels appropriating evil,” Special goes on, sounding petulant and irritated. ”We need to know who’s who. People need to stand up for their evil, take responsibility for it and face the consequences – and vice versa. They need to own their darkness, embrace it, instead of shrouding it in saintly metaphor. The world needs us to take clear sides, or all will descend into confusion.”

Papa bows his head. “Yes.” Special is right, more right than he knows, and Papa is the biggest problem. He's the one who can't keep his fingers off the off-limits, whose gaze wanders dangerously close to God's own cookie jar. He too is exceeding his brief.

But something about it chafes. A kind of regret. A feeling of having missed something vital, that he’s misunderstood it all. That there’s still a mind-shattering truth to be revealed – a thing such as Fate.

“Which is why I want you with me tonight.”

“I’m here to do your –"

“On stage.”

Papa falls quiet. Special looks terrified for a moment. It shines through the deadness of his mask, the mask Papa can see through now that he’s been allowed beneath it once. 

“You will do as I ask.”

“I will.”

“I want…” Special stops to swallow. “I want you to be a part of the ritual.”

Papa sways where he sits. And he thought he’d have to convince _him_. But there’s something dangerous in Special’s eyes. As if Papa hasn’t understood the full scope of it. As if, once again, he’s walking into a trap – or maybe a test?

But he’s compelled by both Special and the Devil, and he can’t refuse.


	10. Eunoia – Goodwill towards the Audience

On trembling legs, Papa walks onto the platform. It clanks a little and shakes before it rises towards the ceiling, towards the floor, raising him up through a hole in the stage like a demon from hell. A good start: how else to come onstage when you're the Devil's pope?

The first thing he sees is Special’s crotch, opened like a gift above him, legs splayed wide as he rocks back and forth, hand miming his self-pleasure. _I want to be that glove_ , Papa sighs internally, knowing he’s using the oldest turn of phrase in literary history. _If he could love me as much as he loves his own hand right now, I could die a happy man._ Except he won’t die, of course. Another figure of speech. But still: the way Special basks in the projected hormone overdose of this congregation - if only Papa could elicit that kind of thrill in him, that kind of rush... But Papa is just one person, and this auditorium houses thousands. There is no way he can compete.

_Remember your mission_ , the voice echoes from below. _Have them project upon_ you, _and he’ll see._

Papa steps off the platform and walks to the edge of the stage. They’re looking at him, some laughing, as if this is all a joke. And maybe it is. Maybe he should treat it like one. He’s about to raise a fist, capture the moment somehow, but once again his impotent fingers close on flimsy dreams. Special extend a hand, offering companionship – this time on a stage, in front of a thousand eyes.

What does it mean?

Papa takes it, because what else can he do? The black leather glove closes on his white silk one and the grip almost hurts but not quite. Only the slow, chilly death coursing through his veins as he once again feels the initiative slipping between his fingers. Special is still leading this dance, still orchestrating. When he flicks a wrist, the guitarist plays. When he raises his arms, the audience swoons. And when he leads Papa to a makeshift altar, a dais adorned with wedding flowers, and then takes the hand of a keyboardist, pulling her to him with a tangoesque flourish…

... something in Papa dies. So this was the plan, the paltry role he was to play? A priest to join the male and female, a nameless title to bless a union so Christian it makes him sick. _Ghuleh, Ghuleh_. Special is making Papa the instrument of his own deposition - now miming sex against his bride, undulating against her slick black groin, pretending the pleasure he had with Papa last night, giving it to her in jest. It is its own kind of blasphemy, to joke about what Papa takes so seriously. Fucking her onstage to the swell of the music and the cheers of the audience: they don’t care. It’s a spectacle, who cares about truth? The cardinal is fucking his so called queen. Now exposing a boner.

Papa tears his gaze from the merciless fabric. It shows everything. _Everything_. Any second now, veins will appear*. The shine of it crinkles and smooths out as his ass twists and rotates, revealing in shocking detail how well he knows his craft. Papa recognizes every thrust, every move. He knows how each variation on the theme feels in his own flesh. He feels the impact of every slip and slide, every rock and roll, the way he holds back in tiny little thrusts or pushes forward with full force…

And when Special looks at Papa, his eyes are knowing. He _knows_ what he’s doing to him. Must know the raging pain when he takes the arm of his Ghuleh in a parody of chivalry and comes to stand in front of Papa, waiting. Their twin faces of expectation staring up at him. Special’s mask an unwavering façade, an accusation of sorts: this is what happens when you don’t take what’s yours, when you don’t guard it with your fucking life. If love is letting go, then need and lust is holding on whatever happens. Grabbing your prize and nailing it.

Because what happens if you don’t? He weds his awful bride.

Papa raises a hand in forced benediction, eyes locked with Special. There is sharpness there, more than usual. Like a question. _Can you go through with it?_ And Papa doesn’t know what the right answer is. If he can’t, is that a failure? Is this a test of his faith? Was this what Special was talking about at breakfast - the owning your darkness? 

Papa's hand freezes in mid-air, halfway through the ritual he’s been tricked into. What is he doing, dancing to the tune of this gutter rat? If anyone should play this pipe, it’s him. He’s forgotten who the fuck he is. He’s been bound by spells and stripped of his identity, and this is where he’s ended up: relegated to a position one step above spectator, asked to seal his own resignation.

Meanwhile, the audience is completely enthralled. Papa has them in his hand, they’re waiting, waiting, breathless to see what happens next. _I'll tell you what happens next. I'm going to turn this rabble of rejects into an army if it’s the last thing I do._

But how?

Once again that voice. _You know how. Give them the imagery they already know. It’s worked so far, hasn’t it?_

Imagery? Papa looks around wildly. The horns on the ghouls, the stained glass backdrop? Special’s ratlike tails?

_Not the frills! The sacraments, damn it. You need to be born and die. You need to feed them the lie, inverted this time to become a truth._

‘Feed them’. Papa almost gasps. He understands. He _understands_. His hand still hangs in the air, white glove shining in the stage lights. It trembles with indecision, and below it, blurry and unfocused, is Special’s unwavering glare. Waiting. Assessing.

The hand descends. Settles, palm down, on Special’s head: the soft touch of authority. Papa barely puts any pressure on it, but Special sinks to his knees. There’s relief in the way his legs give way and his knees meet the floor. His shoulders fall and his head is bowed, Papa’s fingertips keeping him in place. Waiting again, but not assessing. Just ready for instruction. Papa breathes lightly, heart thudding through every gulp of air. The moment is so fragile, and yet so stable: this is right. This is the way of the world. This is the true dynamic. And Special wants it too. Wants to give up the reins.

Papa’s fingers close on the imaginary leather straps. _Yes, my wayward one, I will lead_. He wants to cry from the utter liberation of it: he’s back in charge.

A bell tolls and Special looks up from his position at Papa’s feet. He _is_ the ghost, the _spiritus malum_. He is the flame of rapture, the force that plants the word-seed on the tongues of the devotees. The instrument without which Satan is powerless. Why he’s been powerless all these years, the reason why he withdrew from the world, the reason God withdrew: because he didn’t have to work for it anymore. Satan only had his son, his earthly father – he didn’t have a mouthpiece. But now he has, and that’s why God has awoken, that’s why he’s flexing his muscles and preparing to strike with full force to take back what he imagines his.

They’re an even match now.

Papa grabs Special’s lapels and yanks him up. This is what will seal it, this is what will show the congregation what needs to be done. Whirling round, he raises his arms at the band. A few of them start, wondering what he’s up to, if they’ve missed a beat. He pierces them each with his glare, hands moving above his head, following their pace but looking as if he dictates it.

_I am the puppet master, and don’t I forget it._

It’s up to him to make Special dance.

But first he needs to be born again and die. A grotesque parody of the gospel, played out in real time, in minutes. Before this select audience, this random rabble. An ancient minister of hell to emerge through fire and blood between the legs of a promiscuous virgin.

Papa points at Ghuleh, and she steps forward, one woman picked from a thousand, a lucky girl, a cursed soul. A sword through her chest. The music swells and roars as she stiffens, Satan filling her heart with euphoria. No one touches her, Special just raises his hands like a hellish healer and she quickens with the burden, pants as the chorus crescendoes, and Papa falls to his knees to crawl between her quivering thighs. Smoke rises and flames lick their faces as he is born, reborn to be killed. Again Special takes his hand as he emerges – as if he knows, as if he can read his mind, as if they planned this together. Bathed in dazzling light, Papa comes up to cup Special’s face. As if for the first time, he brings their lips together. And it _is_ the first time, because through the floor he feels the Devil rising, filling him, and when they kiss, they’re all one.

They’re all one.

“Do you deny me?” Papa whispers, and miraculously, Special can hear him above the din.

“Never.”

Never? The mirror image of forever.

It’s not rehearsed, nobody has been told what to do, and still they all follow the script that isn’t, like clockwork angels, like marionettes. Some of them stay by their instruments, others lay them aside and move towards the two of them. They grab Papa and drag him to the podium in the back, a podium with a cross. He raises his arms high like the conductor he is. Red light explodes below, flickers on him but doesn’t touch him. This is his moment. _Sing, my angel of music. Dance, my demon of death!_

And Special dances. He whirls and spins, pirouettes on tiptoe and flings his arms out, balanced by the cane. Like the girl in the story with the red shoes, he twirls and sways, hops and skips, leaping higher and higher, prancing for Papa’s pleasure. He grows tired, Papa can see it, and the musicians are growing tired of their jamming. They want Special to sing again, but Papa isn’t going to let them. Instead they have to play on as their fellow ghouls find nails in their hands and ram them into Papa’s flesh with his orgasmic permission.

_Take this, you fucker. Bet you didn’t see this coming._

It’s the ultimate revenge, a sacrifice not worth the name. The remains of Special’s kiss sting and whisper on his lips as blood drips from his hands, and there’s a sudden roar as God realizes what’s happening. Papa laughs to feel the walls shudder with his anger, with the impotence of his divine shock. _Yes, this is a thrown glove. This is a declaration of war, and our forces are all but gathered. Come at us with all you have – you see the rapture on the faces of this congregation? That’s our bannermen, our drummer boys, our cannon fodder._

_We’re ready for you._

  
  
  


*I totally fucking stole that image from my biggest muse, stateofintegrity.


	11. Co-lapse: On the Eve of the Battle

He has barely left the stage when Special corners him, pressing him into the wall of equipment cases with his body. He’s hard under his tight trousers, one millimetre away from bursting a seam, and he grinds it into Papa’s robes, searching for resistance in the soft folds of it. _Take of my cock and eat it_ , Papa can hear him think, the desperate horniness of it. _This is the niveous potion, shed for you_.

“We don’t have the time,” Papa whispers against his sweaty throat. “Listen.”

There’s an otherworldly rumble outside, a storm brewing, one to end all storms.

“I don’t care,” Special pants. “I need you.”

Papa closes his eyes. _Need you_. It’s good, it’s better than nothing. He can live on that for a few sleepless nights. But he craves more. He craves the heart, the soul and the whole package. But they truly don’t have the time right now.

_You have time._

They both start and stiffen. The voice of ultimate authority, here and now. Everything else - even the blood-rush of desire - must stop.

 _I will meet with God. One last chance for him to back out_.

Papa frowns into Special's damp hair, confused and trying to control his breathing. _A truce? It won’t happen._

_No, but then it’s on his head. Human death feeds hell as much as it feeds heaven. But those million deaths – they’ll be on his conscience._

Papa and Special lock gazes, caught like moths in a web. Shaky breaths mingling in the darkness, the need to believe they have this respite, the doubt casting an ominous shadow. Outside the rumble grows like a hurricane. God is summoning his hordes of mindless sheep, preparing for battle.

 _That doesn’t make sense_ , Papa dares to protest. _We’re the dark side. We should be responsible._

_Yes, yes, darkness_. The Devil sighs impatiently. _The velvet cloak of it, the ultimate protection. You haven’t bought the human definition, have you? We decide what resides in the dark. It changes with each century, each decade. God wants the privilege of death and destruction? Let him have it. He always was a jealous son of a bitch. Even says so himself. But he can’t have it all._

“We’re going to have to fight,” Papa says aloud, and there is fear in his voice. Special shivers against him, reality slamming into their perfect moment. The prophecy is coming true. They’ve provoked God beyond endurance, and he’s going to answer their call. Words are about to become deeds, and neither of them are ready. There is no way anyone can be ready.

 _You have this moment_ , the Devil intones, and the sound of him reverberates through the room like a promise, a veil of protection. Special breathes in frightened starts against Papa's ear, swallowing audibly. He's a trembling fawn, waiting for headlights. He's a first-time soldier about to discover the reality of war. 

“If I die tomorrow…”

Papa breathes in. “I will just take the next one.”

Special hacks out a laugh. “That’s what I thought. But I’d like to give you something to remember me by.”

Their eyes flit past each other, exchanging truths they can never say. Special hooks an arm around Papa’s neck and leans back, hair fanning out on the rough surface of an amplifier case. His jaw falls slightly open, revealing the glint of nether teeth. The old wound in Papa’s throat pulses, once, in pleasant pain, and he shivers to think it: Special wants the chance to feel in control one last time. And Papa will give it to him, will let himself be taken in by this two-faced sphinx, because it's the only thing he has to offer.

Special raises his legs and rests his heels on the edge of the case, high end shoes shining against the chrome. Papa clenches his teeth, trying to gather the strength. This is the end of an era. This act is a gift from the Devil, made possible by a glitch in time. They’re caught on the cusp of tomorrow like flies behind window glass, and when they have come, there will be no more respites. They have this bubble of safety when not even God has the time to listen.

Papa plants a hand by Special’s hip and fumbles for openings in both their garbs. This won’t be as easy for Special as it is for him. He needs more wetness, can’t take the burning pain of it like Papa can. His flesh is still tender and young, marked by mortality and fearful of destruction. It shies away from hurt, however much he tries to hide it, to be impervious.

“Do you want my tongue?” Papa whispers.

“No.” Special shakes his head, looking suddenly weak and unfocused, almost confused. It’s lethal, that weakness. It’s a drug Papa can’t let into his bloodstream – Special looking for reassurance, all with the shadow of those true, naked eyes of his filtering through his mask. Those half hidden mirrors to eternity.

“Try to relax,” Papa forces out as he spits in his hand and weasels between the folds of fabric to find what he seeks. The muscles that taunted him on stage with their self-conscious undulations, now they shiver in apprehension, in longing. When Papa presses a finger against the opening, gliding inside on saliva and hope, Special clamps shut on it – hot and eager, or is it a terrified cramp? Papa kisses his mouth, holding back a little, moving gently.

The Devil’s pope trying to be gentle. It’s a ghastly farce.

_No. It’s inevitable._

He doesn’t mind it, the watching. Satan can watch all he likes. He’s the father of sin after all. But Papa still burns in shame that he doesn’t just take Special without qualms. That he tends to his comfort before his own.

_I told you. If God takes over our responsibilities – and I’m sure you’ll agree he’s done that a long time now – we’ll take over his._

In a single flash of clarity, Papa understands. They’re the mirror image, the glass darkly. Whatever God professes, they must profess the opposite. It doesn’t matter what it is. God spits on witches? They will welcome witches into their fold. God fawns over the captains of industry? The Devil will work to bring them down. God forgets to guard his original acquisitions because he’s so busy acquiring shiny new ones? Papa will steal them under his very nose.

What is the Devil? He’s a weather vane. He’s whatever God isn’t, and hell is a rubbish heap for the unworthy, a last refuge for the unwanted. Sodomites and asexuals, the hyperactive and the slow, Satan doesn’t care. Seekers and lovers, loners and wolves. His door is always open. Whatever new-fangled phenomenon God wants to demonize, Satan is there to embrace it.

A smile in the darkness. _Let it not be said of the Devil that he’s afraid to show his true colours – whatever they are._

With a moan, Papa sheathes himself in Special’s ass. Special cries out and scrabbles for the edge of the case, something to anchor him. Papa grabs his hand and holds it, lacing their fingers even though the lacing of fingers smacks of romance. They’re taking this, they’re making it theirs, and fuck God and all his angels, if he wants war, he’ll have war. _Go ahead, send your minions out to defend what’s yours, but meanwhile I’m here, the Devil’s pope, making_ love.

His heart drops into a void at the thought, but what the bleeding fuck, it’s true. Beneath him, Special whimpers and mewls, gliding thrusts pushing him into the rugged black of the case. Papa mimicks his stage-moves, but angles his hips to make it as pain-free as possible, as slow and languorous and slippery as he can. And Special catches his breath, he can take it. He's in charge, he's the devourer, he dictates the pace. He’s the object of love, the king being tended to by his subject.

And as he pumps faster, angling for Special’s maximum pleasure, Papa finally understands how and why they’re needed – why the Devil will always have his place. It’s the answer to the riddle why God forbids humanity to lie while spreading the biggest lie himself: that there can only be goodness and light, that love is a force for good, that _he is love_. As if love is only one thing, one force, and he has all the answers. But his love is never unconditional, it's as conditional as it gets. As long as they spout his lies, everything is fine. But if they start sniffing out the truth, he will destroy them. No lies but his, no god but God. One being encompassing everything.

No wonder they’re lost. No wonder so many lambs lead themselves to their own slaughter. They kill in his name, they die in his name because somewhere deep down they feel the lie and it tears them apart. They can’t live with the disjoint, the crumbling illusion that everything has one universal answer. That there is one path, and that God is waiting with open arms at the end of it. They’d rather die than face the way they’ve been taken in, would rather sacrifice it all to avoid knowing themselves completely, knowing that everything they believed in was just the deranged imaginings of that power-starved fucker in the sky.

Papa grinds deeper and deeper, but not for his own sake, but for Special, always for Special. It’s what he never understood: they’re stronger this way, not weaker. How can an alliance stand if not bound by anything stronger than a contract? What Papa and Special have, what Satan has blessed – it may be the key to their victory.

 _But how do I do it?_ he cries silently, grasping at the hem of Satan’s mantle as the ultimate pleasure rises in him. _How do I help you bring God to his knees?_

_By killing his accomplices._

_His angels?_

_No._

Papa’s heart almost stops, but he doesn’t object.

_You know it’s the only way. Only then will I be level with God. Both of us alone, both of us without secret weapons. So go on, love your Special, love him with all your heart, but do it in my name._

Papa closes his eyes and breathes in through his nose, feels euphoria fill him. He will be the instrument again, Satan’s organ and his flute, the trumpet that announces his second coming. He will not leave the world to its fate, will not abandon humanity to fend for themselves against an over-reaching God. He has a purpose and he will rise to the occasion, and damn it, if God wants to have everything, to have darkness and evil and all the murderous sins of hell at his disposal, if he truly wants to initiate that fight, Papa will give him what he wants. He will take over God’s own monopoly.

As Special gasps and shudders and comes beneath him, Papa cements his resolve: he will steal love itself from God.


	12. Elocutio – The Trumpet of War

Orange-tinted clouds roil overhead. Bats and ravens circle the swaying silhouettes of trees. Dust swirls in dense pillars, and bright patches of light appear and disappear on the helmets of soldiers. Sparks fly from clashing swords, and the air reverberates with thunder and the whizzing of spears.

All the church bells across the globe are tolling. Every tower of prayer is echoing with proclamations, every cymbal, every drum that calls its disparate congregations together are resounding in an unsupervised cacophony. Nobody at the helm, no one to keep the pace. Voices like choirs, like the dead howling in Hades. The clash of weapons and shields, it’s a din never heard. The air quivers with sulphur and salt, with smoke and blood.

Papa stumbles over the fallen, sword heavy in his hand. Back to back with Special, he parries the blows from monster-faced angels bearing down on them, keening blades flickering with celestial fire. Around them, demons release their giant ballistas to send iron arrows zinging through the sky, ripping through feather and fabric. Bows are smashed, wings are torn. The angels nock and release at a furious pace, slicing through demon skin, spearing their bleeding husks into the ground.

 _Zhiiinggg_ , one sharp arrowhead slices Special’s arm, and blood wells from a superficial wound. He clutches it, face contorted by exhaustion and pain, and Papa grabs him by the lapel, an echo of the ritual – how safe and fake that moment was compared to this! “You need to keep your feet. You need to be prepared when –”

He gets no further. A sound reverberates over the hills, and the air brightens to the point of blindness. They raise their arms and shield their eyes, but this is no earthly light that can be so easily warded off. It is a light that shrieks, a sound that descends in a searing halo - the electric storm that once brought the God-seed from heaven to hearth, from the clouds to close quarters, impregnating the very first victim of their creed.

The Holy Ghost.

Papa has the time to see dismay shatter Special’s face – there is no way he can defeat that, ordinary man that he is. Now, in this moment, he realizes that the devotion he's known means nothing. The swaying hands in auditoriums, the raptured faces - they may have seen otherworldly power in him, but he’s still a mortal, still a mere earthly soul with a penetrable husk, and the Holy Ghost is pure aether. Its gaze incinerates, its breath corrodes.

He’s defenceless against it.

A giant wolf comes bounding out of the light, the Devil himself on its back. “I’ll take you to him.” He grabs Papa by the scruff of his neck and pulls him up. _Wait_ , Papa tries to scream, but the wind stops the sound. His throat fills to bursting, his protest a chokehold of air.

 _Special_ …

He turns and looks at him, at his minuscule form receding behind them. Alone, a puny blade in his hand, the Holy Ghost descending on him in sparks of white and blue. This is his moment, this is his chance, but it will be his last.

And Papa has his own enemy to defeat. The battlefield rushes past, death and destruction a mere red blur. The Devil drops him off on a desolate spot, far from the fighting. “Make me proud.” The sword is fitted anew into Papa’s hand, the vow is spoken. The time has come to fulfil his mission – but why? Special won’t be there when he’s done.

This is the end of his tether.

Turning heavily, he stands face to face with the Son.

“And so we have come to this.” It’s a sigh on the wind, barely a voice at all. It’s the weariness of eons in auditive form, and the brown eyes in that well-known face are tired beyond resignation.

 _Will you not fight, lord?_ the words almost tumble over Papa’s lips. It’s so hard not to bow to that age-old authority – even for him, the supposed enemy.

A shadowy smile twists Christ’s lips, only to die at once. “No,” he says, as if he’s heard the aborted question. "I'm done fighting."

It might be a trap, but Papa’s hand falls to his side. The sword lands with a heavy thud in the earth. Far off, the battle rages on, the crackle and singe of the Holy Ghost illuminating the clouds as it clashes with Special’s ineffectual weapon. But where they're standing, there's just emptiness. Just the quiet swirls of dust and smoke coiling up their ankles.

Jesus sighs. “Don’t you ever get sick of it all? Don’t you ever grow tired of your master?”

Papa gazes at the bright explosion that is his Special’s certain death. “There’s a thousand and none answers to that.”

“Look at them.” Jesus sweeps a hand over the battlefield, encompassing humans and demons, angels and creatures both winged and crawling. “Do they even know what they’re fighting for – or against?”

Papa’s ribs sing with pain. He had something to fight for – but no more.

Jesus comes to stand beside him, their sleeves almost touching. The Devil’s pope on earth and God’s only son, side by side, overlooking the carnage wrought by others. Neither of them raising a hand against the other. Because what’s the point? It will only happen again and again and again. A thousand year war, the prophet said. What a joke. A thousand years isn’t enough, a million isn’t enough. It’s impossible to count the sheer stretch of millennia that will see this war prolonged. It’s the basis for every breath on earth: life itself is war, a constant fight. It’s not a decision that can be made once and for all, it’s not a battle that can be won. It’s an endless swing of the pendulum, an endless succession of waves, now bright, now dark, neither of them king for more than a day. Just a sequence of opposites, just more and more of the same.

Jesus looks down at the sword hanging limp from Papa’s hand. “I’m done,” he says again. His eyes trail up the shiny blade, up Papa’s arm and into his eyes. For a single lightning-bright moment, Papa understands how this man-god managed to so hoodwink an entire corner of the world. They’re fierce and loving, those eyes, they speak of strength and vulnerability. They almost remind him of Special.

His chest hollows out. He knows what he has to do, what Jesus _wants_ him to do – the Christ who was born for one purpose and then denied. The saviour who died but was cruelly resurrected, wounds still intact, to chafe under God’s rule for the rest of his endless life.

Jesus nods as he sees Papa understand. Then he gets to his knees and closes his eyes, the matted knots of his hair fluttering in the wind. But he looks so much like Special, Papa can’t move. A philosophical adage flits through his mind, a linguistic paradox: opposites share all traits but one. They can’t exist without each other. Black and white are the same, except for how they reflect the light.

The hilt of his weapon glides through sweaty fingers, wanting to fall unused at his feet.

Jesus opens his eyes. “You’d have me do it the Roman way?”

He reaches for the sword, and Papa takes a step back. “I’ll miss you,” he says, shocking himself, but it’s true. He will.

Jesus chuckles. “Yes. We were both quite taken in, weren’t we?”

“What do you mean?”

“Pitted against each other.”

“And now you’d have me fulfil that contract.”

“With my permission, it’s not the same.”

Papa shakes his head. “It will unbalance the world. The Devil will win.” The Devil who sent Special into a hopeless fight, knowing he'd die.

Jesus smiles. “No, he won’t. And neither will God. They will just be left to their own devices. Now do it: kill me, and reap the reward.”

Papa’s heart pumps acid. “My reward,” he whispers.

Jesus looks at him with that piercing gaze, loding his depths. “You don’t know what he’s planned? You don’t know the gift he’s giving you that my own father won’t? Don’t you know how lucky you are? Kill me, and kill yourself.”

It’s only a figure of speech, but it surges through Papa’s body, fills him with strength and relief, anger and grief. “Are you certain? Are you speaking the truth?”

“Deathbed confessions would be pointless if not true. He means to let you go.”

A sob rises through Papa as he raises his arm and plunges the sword through Christ’s heart. It slices open so easily, like he’s already dead, and maybe he is. Like a drone that lost the will to live years ago. Jesus doubles over, a look of peace on his face. Red bubbles froth on his lips. “Thank you…”

When he falls face first into the mud, Papa’s heart wrenches in his chest. _Thank you_. It echoes in his own chest, and the answer he hears there howls as desperate as the wind. To die, to sleep. He’s done Jesus the ultimate favour. Severed his ties to his master and given him peace at last – a peace Papa might finally know.


	13. Peripeteia – When All Seems Lost

A glooming peace rises over the ruin of bodies. Under the damp sheet of the sky, blackened feathers tumble slowly, an inverted snowfall over rent silk and tufts of hair. Bones of demons stick up through the mud, where survivors walk around setting fire to the remains. Flames leap up and eat away at motionless limbs, fluttered by a moaning wind. Crows complain at the rising smoke.

Where is Special? Where is his pale and still form among the corpses?

The miasma of rotting flesh and burning skin clogs Papa’s throat as he ploughs through the field of death, desperate for a sign. The fire is spreading, consuming as it licks its way through fragile substrate. It races over the graveyard, devouring indiscriminately, hunger growing with each bite. Hunting for Special, dashing to reach him before Papa.

He recognizes faces here and there, visitors to his church. Now they’re spent, they’ve done their duty, and they would have been eaten by scavengers, but the fire wards them off. Overhead they circle, cawing out their dismay while the restless ghosts of the departed buffet at the doors to heaven and hell. They’ve done their part and want their reward, but no one’s home to receive them. God and the Devil are at the negotiating table, staring each other down over a piece of parchment detailing the shape of their truce. Bullet points describing their fleeting peace: this is what you’ll have, this is mine. This you must do, this not ever again.

Lies, all of it.

His feet tangle in limp arms, sink into melting flesh, squelching free as he scrabbles to keep upright, to move forward, to get there in time. Rivers of blood mingle with earth. He slips in the gore, fingers sinking into slop as he catches himself. He can’t breathe: something is lodged in his vocal cords, swelling by the second. The fire rushes ahead of him, trapping him on an island of death. He’s lost in the sheer bedlam clamour of it, inside him a single thought: that it was all for nothing.

The beating of giant wings makes him look up. A demon comes flapping through the smoke, talons piercing his shoulders. He wants to fight, to run into the fire, but his strength is gone. He lets himself be lifted above the carnage, helpless in its clutches, helpless to find Special. It’s too late, and the realization dissolves his entire being into hot lava. Drops of it fall over the sea of fire as he’s carried away, their salty wetness impotent against the raging. He hangs limp in the grip of claws, uninterested in what happens to him now. Nothing matters anymore.

The demon sets him down on a ledge above the abyss. Below the cliff is a liquid chaos of plasma, above the sky is a lid of smog. Papa’s feet find purchase on the stone as the demon takes off. _Whoosh, whoosh_ , its wings will carry it for miles and miles, but Papa’s weak limbs won’t take him anywhere. He can just hope that the Devil hasn’t forgotten, that his promise is made of more than dust.

And so he stands there alone, waiting, old body aching, looking out at the end of all things.


	14. Is Est

Until suddenly, behind him: a presence.

His knees want to give way. There’s no more resistance, no more strength to take these thousand natural shocks. But he does it, he turns, and for a moment he doesn’t even recognize him.

His mask is gone, burnt to a crisp. His hair is singed, dripping with blood, a splash of it trickling from forehead to eyes, over cheekbones and jaw. Soot is smudged into his skin, an echo of his onstage paint, but this is no mere charade to entertain an audience. This is real blood, real fatigue, a face come back from confronting death. His sleeves and collar are rent and burnt. His hand hangs useless by his side, no weapon left. He is war-torn and soul-worn.

But he still is.

“Special…” The word is so inadequate, it doesn’t cover what Papa sees in front of him. He needs to touch, to see with his hands, to hold. He reaches out - unsteady, blood-smeared fingers that want the warmth of another. He sees Special’s hand rise and move, and they meet as strangers in no man’s land. Feel their way inside palms that are still alive, still theirs to take.

“You’re… How...?” Papa raises his other hand to touch Special’s face, and he winces, blinking the blood out of his eyes. “You’re hurt.”

“But you should see the other guy,” he says – a brittle joke, marred by the faint wheeze that is his voice.

Papa shakes his head, refusing to smile at what’s meant to downplay the enormity of what he’s done. “You ended the Holy Ghost.”

As if the words break the news to him who did it, he shivers and falls to his knees. His sword hand cramps in his lap, retroactively terrified. “I… I…”

“Shh.” Papa kneels beside him, lays an arm around his trembling frame. “You did it. You don’t have to explain.”

Special shakes in his embrace, stiff and cold. Sticky blood from his veins and his victims alike dry on his arms, his clothes. “This… isn’t… what I… signed up for,” he tries to joke again, and Papa pulls him close, burying his face in his wet hair. His eyes prickle, and for the first time he lets the thought break out of its cage and fly free: _I want to just be with him_. To lay aside his title, to renounce his birth right - for _him_. To do what none before Papa have ever done. To take tradition and shove it in a hole. Who decides but him? Who wields the quill of this wasted life?

“Special –”

“No!” It comes out muffled but frantic. Special wrenches free of Papa’s hold and stares up at him. “If you say it, you’ll lose your life.”

Papa gazes down at him, feeling strangely paternal. “My… life?”

“Your eternal life,” Special says, and diamonds bead in his lashes. “You’ll become mortal.”

A flicker of a smile from beyond the grave: Jesus winking. Papa feels the knots in his muscles untie, the weight of millennia begin to slide. He only needs to know one thing. “Are you dying?”

“Me?” Special looks confused. “Oh…” He glances at his wounds. “No. No, but –”

“I lo–”

“No!” Special gasps. “Are you insane?”

Papa can’t stop a laugh. _Yes. Yes, I’m insane, and it’s glorious_. "I love you."

Is there a tremble in the taut lines of Special’s throat? Is there something other than contempt in the shining glass of his eyes? Taking hold of his shoulders, Papa plants a chaste kiss on his forehead, and Special bows his head and gulps a raspy breath. A hand comes up to cover his eyes. His mouth contorts in a grimace that looks like a grin but it’s too tense, too drawn. Papa squeezes him closer, and Special curls up in his arms like a child. He sobs against Papa’s shoulder, storm-wracked and rudderless, a drowning man with one single life buoy.

Closing his eyes, Papa just holds him and strokes his back. “I love you,” he repeats, and as he does, he feels eternity melt away from him, years he would have lived, dripping from him like water. Even his age is dissolved, he can feel it, the greying hairs regaining colour, the skin on his face tightening. It's a miracle beyond anything he could have hoped. In one irrational moment he’s decided, and he's come out the other side a mortal, stripped of all his power. 

And it’s beautiful. Because Special is crying in his arms.

“I love you too – fuck!” He cries harder, wanting to be someone else, somewhere else, anything but this: an ordinary man, reaching for another.

 _Thank you Satan_ , Papa mouths. Here by the field of fire, a world turned funeral pyre, he’s finally got his punishment and his reward. Everything he thought he was, lost. Everything he tried not to want, won. And a limited amount of years to enjoy it.

They sit like that, still as statues, a tangle of limbs, until the tears are spent. They sit long afterwards too, breathing the smoky air, chests heaving in unison. Papa's hand in Special's hair, gripping it in wonder, fingers flexing to feel their renewed strength. 

“So..." he whispers against Special's temple. "You still want to do it?”

They draw apart, and Special looks at him in question. “Do what?”

Something tugs at Papa’s lips – something disobedient and frivolous. “What you do. Hold mass. Seduce the masses.”

There was a time when the answer would have been instantaneous and cold, an icy projectile to spar with him, to wound. But now Special cocks his head and seems to actually think about it. “My mind is calm,” he mumbles after a while, gentle shock on his features. “There’s silence at last.” He stares at Papa, disbelieving. And then his eyes narrow slightly. “But not for long. Oh lord.” He sighs, but it’s not the moaning wind from the depths of hell. It’s the light summer breeze from a heart reawakened, a heart that still loves - but not with the passion that threatened to incinerate it.

“I still want to,” he says finally, and with it, an impish boy-grin that yanks Papa’s soul out of his chest. Special laughs – a sound Papa has never heard – a beam of sun through the blanket of the dark. So simple, but it’s all he wants right now, on this ledge, after this fight: to see Special smile.

Their hands slip down to meet each other, to snake together like souls eternally bound, but there is no eternity, there is no forever. Just this moment, on a cliff above the chasm. Just the possibility of tomorrows, and the choices they will make then. The banality of togetherness at last, the mayfly moment of bliss before the candle is snuffed out. And the thought that has fluttered at the edge of Papa’s consciousness for an age can finally land and fold its wings in rest.

_Time is like those flames._


End file.
